Play Fighting
FREDERICTON—The school year is almost over, and many students are swamped with final essays or projects. On top of this, Fredericton, Moncton, and Saint John areas have now entered the yellow phase of the pandemic recovery plan. Many wonder if these areas will stay in the yellow phase throughout the holidays, or if there will be another surge in COVID-19 cases because more people are travelling home to their families.
Everyone needs a break from the stress of school and the pandemic, so Tiger Levi, Aslihan Erol, and their roommates decided to host a video game tournament in Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros Ultimate on Saturday, December 5th.
“It makes us do something together, helps us forget about all the stress that COVID and school is providing us right now,” said Levi.
Almost everyday for the last month, Levi and his roommates have played the famous fighting game after long hours of studying. It is a great strategy to help them focus. When they start their schoolwork for the day, they’ll pick a time later that night to play, and then they work toward the set time as if it is a reward for finishing their work.
Players choose characters from different video game franchises to duke it out in 2D maps. Character and map selections range from Nintendo’s famous Mario series, with notable characters like Bowser, Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi, to big names from competing companies, like Sonic the Hedgehog from Sega’s series of the same name, Pacman from Bandai Namco, or Steve from the now Microsoft-owned game, Minecraft.
Fighting games have a steep learning curve, and it is usually hard for beginning players to pick up the game, especially when there are so many characters with different strengths and weaknesses. However, Super Smash Bros has simple controls that only require three buttons to learn the basics of attacking and defending. The intricacy of this fighting game comes from controller inputs combined to create combos, chaining different attacks together. It is a perfect fit for Levi and his roommates. Players new and experienced can play with each other, and because the controls are easy to pick up, and because eight people can play at once on one system, so long as there are eight controllers available.
Everyone becomes easily invested in the game because it is easier than other fighting games for beginners to pick up, but this makes the game very competitive. There may be trash-talking from time to time, so, to settle the conflict, Levi and his friends hosted the tournament, but what matters most is the household coming together.
“Playing this game just makes me feel really at home because, you know, I can’t be at home with my parents because of orange phase, and many of us can’t be at home right now, either,” Levi said.
The tournament is an excuse for Levi and his friends to spend time together, so they called it the “Forest Hill House Monthly” tournament. Everyone played well, and whoever won was unimportant, aside from their bragging rights.
Aslihan Erol, one of Tiger Levi’s roommates, is away from her friends back home in Turkey, and this has let her become closer with her roommates and make friends to help alleviate the stress of school and the pandemic.
“It’s nice when I get to play with them and learn how to play because it makes me spend more time with them and get to know them better,” Erol said.
The Forest Hill household already has another tournament set for January.